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Fadi Abu Shamat is sitting in a room with a small group of journalists holding what might be the most ambitious smartphone Samsung has ever made. The Galaxy Z TriFold unfolds not once, but twice, revealing a 10-inch display that makes every other phone suddenly look quaint. At 3.9mm at its thinnest point, breaking what he calls “the four-millimetre barrier for the first time in Samsung’s entire history”, it’s an engineering statement as much as a product launch.
But what’s striking isn’t the specs. It’s what Abu Shamat, head of the Mobile Experience Division at Samsung Gulf Electronics, reveals about how this device came to exist: Samsung manufactured more test units for quality assurance than they’re actually selling to consumers. “No company would incur that much cost,” he admits, “but we decided to go down that route to make ensure that the final product is up to our expectation and, more importantly, our consumers’ expectations.”
And as the conversation unfolds, it becomes clear this launch, unveiled globally on December 2, with the UAE among just five debut markets, is about something bigger than a new form factor. It’s about convincing the world that foldables aren’t a niche experiment anymore. Here are excerpts from the discussion.
The hinge engineering on the Galaxy Z TriFold seems incredibly complex. What made it possible?
In my personal opinion, the hinge is the pinnacle of engineering behind the Galaxy Z TriFold. It’s a dual hinge with custom-tailored design, they’re not identical hinges. Because of the inward folding, each hinge had to be separately designed.
They’re built from titanium elements to ensure rigidity and meet 200,000-plus testing cycles, while maintaining the extra lightweight form we needed. On a 10-inch foldable, the first of this size, we wanted to reduce the crease as much as engineering limits allow. That’s where the special aluminum-supporting back-plating of each titanium hinge comes in. The hinge is a breakthrough.
Additionally, the titanium hinge housing introduces a thin piece of metal that protects the folding mechanism and resists wear over time.
The frame of the device is supported by Advanced Armor Aluminum, a high-strength alloy that adds rigidity without increasing bulk.
Fans will be looking forward to buy this phone. Tell us about its durability.
I’ll take it one step back first. Quality assurance for the Galaxy Z TriFold was literally the utmost priority when R&D was building this form factor.
We’re offering a dedicated premium support line only for Galaxy Z TriFold users. They can call and get assistance for any after-sales support needed.
We have two of our most premium service points — Dubai Mall and Media City — fully equipped with the specialised equipment needed.
The Galaxy Z TriFold requires a dedicated machine to handle the 10-inch screen, so not every branch can service it. But consumers can visit any branch, and staff will transport the device through the right channels to those two main centres.
Let’s address what some will see as a limitation: why no S Pen support?
The rationale was simple: focus on thinness and lightness. This device needs to be practical, an actual daily driver, not a concept piece. For that, we had to cross the four-millimetre barrier for the first time in Samsung’s history. This device at its thinnest point is 3.9 millimetres.
The capacitive layer needed for S Pen support would have increased both weight and thickness. And this is a ‘trifold’, so every millimetre on any side compounds into a much thicker, less elegant device. Samsung’s R&D made a call: the slimness and mobility of the device took the higher priority.
You mentioned this is going to just five markets initially: The UAE, Korea, China, Singapore, and Taiwan. What was the strategy behind this?
The inception of the Galaxy Z TriFold wasn’t the usual commercial-first approach. This device is aimed to deliver two things. One: give our consumers globally a glimpse of what the future holds for the foldable category. We’ve been saying for years that foldables are here to stay —not a niche, not experimental, but a main category Samsung offers. We wanted to show what more this category will hold.
Two: we genuinely wanted to celebrate the end of a great year. 2025 has been absolutely amazing for Samsung, especially on foldables. The Galaxy Z Fold7 has been by far the most successful foldable device in our entire history. We wanted to end the year with a bang.
The five markets were selected carefully based on several criteria. Number one: they had to have already mature foldable markets. All five have consumers already aware of the technology based on previous sales.
Second: they needed global footprint. As I mentioned, this device is meant to celebrate our fans. If any market didn’t have the amplification power to reach the global scene, it doesn’t make sense to choose it.
And last but not least, and I’m sharing this for the first time externally, there was literally internal competition between all the subsidiaries.
You have no idea how eager all Samsung offices globally were to be selected for this launch.
That creates interesting internal dynamics. So is this a limited release, then?
The Galaxy Z TriFold is not going to be a limited edition phone. This is not a one-time device. As a category, it’s part of our overall lineup offering. It’s here to stay.
From these five markets, it’s only going to get bigger. More markets will be introduced as early as January or February next year. This is just the start, test pilot markets where we collect feedback and constantly feed that back to headquarters. That only helps us have more confidence and fine-tune this category.
If there’s really strong demand in these initial markets, will you produce more units?
Yes. We will be.
Who is the Galaxy Z TriFold catering to?
Two target audiences, though technology always surprises us. Number one: C-level executives with high-demanding lifestyles. They’re expected to stay productive 24/7 — in the office, between meetings, on airplanes.
The Galaxy Z TriFold will help make their lives more fun and interesting. They can continue video call meetings while using AI productivity features, summarise calls, email immediately. And when they deserve an hour of entertainment to watch their favorite movie, they can enjoy it on a 16:9 aspect ratio on the device.
The second audience is entrepreneurs and I mean that broadly. SMB founders, pioneers who are hopefully the future C-level executives, and content creators. Nowadays we’re seeing entrepreneurship where the content creator is his own boss, the same person dealing with fans, vendors, producers.
Such a device with the versatility of the trifold form factor allows for more efficient, productive lives and better AI usage. We really see AI shining on this new form factor.
Let’s talk battery technology. Why lithium instead of carbon technology that some competitors are using?
Our R&D still sees that carbon technology isn’t stable enough for longevity purposes. It’s promising, sure, hopefully one day our R&D will stabilise it. But when we release a device at Samsung, we make two simple but extremely challenging promises: seven years of security and software updates, and guaranteed availability of spare parts and repair services.
To deliver that, we need to ensure every single component inside our devices is seven years durable and operational. As far as I know from R&D, carbon technology doesn’t hold that promise of longevity yet. That’s why we haven’t switched.
But you’ve introduced 45W fast charging for the first time on a foldable. What changed?
The form factor. The 10-inch size allowed us, for the first time, to break above 5,000mAh, this is a 5,600mAh device on a 3.9mm thin form factor. The battery is split between the three sides of the device.
Second, the form factor allows proper cooling of the internals. Even with 3.9mm thinness, we have ample space for our state-of-the-art vapour chamber technology. That ensures even at 45W fast charging, there’s enough cooling so consumers can charge quickly without worrying about overheating.
There’s a question that keeps coming up: the Ultra series development essentially ended the Note series. Could trifold development eventually kill the standard fold?
That’s very interesting. I’d rephrase it this way: the Note series evolved or merged within the S series only to make way for the Z series, for the foldable category. I remember when we took that decision — fans raged because Note had a loyal fan base. But nowadays it makes perfect sense.
There’s a first half dedicated to bar-type devices and a second half dedicated to everything new in foldables. No, I don’t see future cannibalisation where one device offsets the other. The lineup is in perfect balance between first half and second half.
And the S Pen will stay with the S series going forward?
Absolutely. It’s part of what makes the S series special. The versatility, the best camera systems, the S Pen housed inside and best screen technology. I promise you, even going forward, it’s staying. Soon enough we’ll meet to talk about what’s next for the S series.
Give us a glimpse into 2026. What can we expect from Samsung?
I can promise you: 2026 will be one of the most versatile years I’ve seen at Samsung. There are a lot of new categories, new launches. We’re venturing into more domains, and I’m not talking about new devices from existing families. We’re going to see new devices for the first time, new categories, new form factors, different domains.
Whether on optics, acoustics, foldables, it’s going to be very interesting. Plus our usual refreshers year over year. We’re going to be busy. I promise you, very, very busy next year.
OS updates, it is same seven-year commitment as other flagships?
Hundred per cent. Seven years of software and security updates. We’ve adopted a quarterly update cycle. Right now we’re at One UI 8.0. With our upcoming flagship, we move to 8.5, then 9 in the second half, and so on.
As the session wraps, Abu Shamat lingers to demonstrate the hinge mechanism one more time, showing how the dual-titanium structure allows the device to fold with almost no gap between panels. It’s the kind of detail that costs millions in R&D but might go unnoticed by most buyers.
But that’s the point. Samsung isn’t building the TriFold for most buyers, at least not yet. They’re building it for the people who notice those details, who understand what it takes to manufacture more test units than sales units, who appreciate that breaking the four-millimetre barrier required rethinking every component.
Note: The Galaxy Z TriFold went on sale in the UAE on December 19. Samsung has reported that the device has sold out in the UAE within minutes following its launch, reflecting strong demand for Samsung’s most ambitious foldable device to date and the next evolution in the company’s long-term foldables roadmap.
